How To Backup Email On A Mac

I hate email. If ever there was a killer app for internet users, it’s email. Why? Email kills. There are times when I’d rather die than face a few hundred messages first thing in the morning.

That’s the problem. As much as we hate using email, it’s a necessary evil, a fact of life for many of us, Mac or Windows PC users. Email messages– especially in the age of litigious lawyers– need to be backed up and saved. Here’s how.

Set It, Forget It

Mac users with a good backup routine know the value of having a pristine backup of all falls. That’s why backup applications are so popular.

Enter Horcrux Email Backup, the IMAP email backup app for the Mac. This one is mostly set it up, and forget about it. The backups are handled in the background.

Click the Horcrux icon in the Menubar to open Preferences and setup your email accounts.

Horcrux works with Gmail, iCloud email, Microsoft Exchange, and most other IMAP email accounts. It does not work on POP mail accounts.

The way it works is simple enough. Setup the accounts (multiple accounts are accepted). Adjust the backup frequency. And, that’s it. Backups are handled in the background.

Horcrux even lets you browse through email messages stored on a server and messages can be deleted.

What if you delete an email message but want to get it back? Apple’s built-in Time Machine does the deed, but not as easily as Horcrux.

Check the backup, find the message, click to restore.

Email messages can also be archived as a .zip file which means the backup data is portable; suitable for moving to another Mac, backing up on Dropbox, or elsewhere. The restore function skips over email messages that already exist.

Horcrux is nicely done, very Mac-like (elegant, simple to setup and use), and priced modestly, considering the overall value.

But I still hate email.

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About Wil Gomez

I live in Brooklyn, New York and work in Manhattan; a Mac owner for almost 25 years, and an IT specialist on mixed platforms-- Mac, Windows, and Linux. Read more of my articles here. My fiancée is semi-famous Kate MacKenzie. Follow her on PixoBebo.

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